


Crossover

by Jcapasso916



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 13:09:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7105798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jcapasso916/pseuds/Jcapasso916
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sam goes too far into his depression after the release of Lucifer and his split from Dean, Gabriel steps in and takes him on a tour through different alternate realities (my other fanfics) to try and show him that things aren't all about him. What they find, however, shocks them both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Possible triggers in the prologue. Separated by in text warnings as well. You can skip without losing too much of the story or skip the entire prologue.

As Sam got in the truck driving away from his brother to start a new life, he couldn’t help but think back on how he had gotten to this point. He’d let himself get so consumed with revenge that he’d trusted a demon over his own brother. He’d drugged himself on demon blood in order to kill another demon who had been baiting him anyway and ended up releasing the devil. Revenge really was a downward spiral. And it brought him to where he was now. There was an apocalypse on and he was running away from it. His brother didn’t trust him in the slightest anymore, and even worse, he didn’t trust himself. The best thing he could do would be to stay out of the way and not cause any more trouble. 

When the man driving, whose name he never did get, stopped to let him out a decent distance away from the war-ravaged town, Sam dug into his wallet and handed him a couple twenties for the help before heading into the motel. He’d made sure to get enough cash that he wouldn’t have to use his fake cards. If he was actually going to try and settle down, it would be a bad idea. Once he’d checked into the motel and dropped his stuff, he went out looking for a job and by the end of the day was a busboy at a local sports bar going by the name of Keith. It didn’t pay much, but it would keep him in the motel and fed. 

He didn’t see much point in getting a house or an apartment for one person, not that he would have any idea what to do with either anyway. When he factored in the rent and utilities it was roughly the same price to stay in the cheap motel so that was where he would stay. He quickly set up a routine. One in which he was always either at work or at the motel. He usually ate at work and he never spoke to anyone more than he absolutely had to. He didn’t need to be poisoning anyone else’s life. 

 

POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING!!!!

 

He knew when he bought the razor blades that it was a bad idea, but as soon as he saw them he couldn’t turn away. He imagined what they would feel like sliding over his skin, the sight of the blood welling up there. He knew the blood wouldn’t affect him the same way as demon blood. It didn’t have the same pull. But the pain is what he was after. The physical pain might drown out the crushing guilt and stabbing emotional agony, at least for a minute or two. It would get him a little relief and that’s really all he needed at the moment, so he grabbed a box of them and a couple box-cutters to avoid any suspicious looks he might get as to why he needed them. Like anyone would actually care anyway. 

They were the first things he pulled out of the bags when he got back to the motel after his shopping trip and everything else lay there forgotten as he unwrapped the first blade and put it to his arm drawing a deep gash there. He both hissed in pain and sighed with relief at the same time. It felt almost like he was purging his system. Like the blood pouring from his arm was carrying the pain and guilt with it. He closed his eyes and made another cut leaning his head against the wall and letting his breathing even out as he relaxed more than he had in a very long time. One more cut and he let the blade fall from his fingers.

He wrapped a towel loosely around his arm and went to lie down and enjoy the relief and before he knew it he had drifted off and had the best night’s sleep he’d had in years. He should have tried this a long time ago. He woke refreshed and was glad that he was far enough north that wearing a sweatshirt wouldn’t be out of place. He knew that no one would understand the cuts on his arms and how necessary they were. He tried to resist the urge after that. He’d told himself that it was going to be a one-time thing, but then he had a whole box of razor blades. Why shouldn’t he use them if they helped? It wasn’t hurting anyone. A few days later found him in the same position as he drew a blade over his arm and let the peace wash over him. After that it was a daily thing to destress after a long day at work. It didn’t take long before it was a twice daily thing, so that he could make it through work too. 

Then a blast from his past showed up. A few hunters came into the bar asking for his help. He turned them away. No way was he going to risk getting involved. He was poison. He took an extra-long time with the blade that night. Then two of them came back again the next night. One held his co-worker hostage while the other poured demon blood down his throat, both raging at him for getting their friends killed. He managed to spit out the demon blood and get both him and the girl out of there alive, but that just solidified his point. An innocent girl had nearly gotten killed just for being near him. 

He went back to the motel as quickly as he could and stripped out of his shirt. He sat there for a minute turning the razor blade over in his fingers as he considered his next move. It wasn’t something that could be taken back so he felt that it deserved a moment to be really sure before he went there. It didn’t take long for him to decide that he was really sure. He was familiar enough with the process on a smaller scale that he knew exactly what to expect as he raised the blade to his wrist and pulled it down his arm. He went a bit deeper than he had intended, but it didn’t matter as the blood pumped from his wrist and he could feel the darkness around the edges of his vision. 

END OF TRIGGER WARNING!!!!

 

Before he could completely lose consciousness he heard a deep growling voice say, “That is quite enough of this crap,” and felt a warm hand wrap around his wrist. Sam suddenly felt himself coming back to awareness and the flow of blood from his wrist trickled to a halt. He blinked his eyes open a few times before the sight registered with him. 

“Trickster!” he exclaimed more than a little pissed off that he had been interrupted, not to mention all the crap from before. “Stay the fuck away from me!” He tried to scramble away only to find the grip on his wrist too tight as he was held under an unnerving cold stare from the demi-god in front of him. 

“Oh yes, because obviously you can take such good care of yourself,” he said sarcastically. 

“Fuck off,” Sam snapped. 

“How about you just get over yourself already? Oh poor me, I let Lucifer out,” he mocked. “You made a choice. You ignored everyone who tried to stop you, including me, so man up and deal with the consequences.”

“That’s what this is? You saved me because I haven’t been punished enough?” Sam asked incredulously. “And what do you mean you tried to stop me?”

“I really was talking to a brick wall wasn’t I? This obsession only ends in blood and pain? You can’t save your brother? Any of this ringing a bell?” He wasn’t going to address the reason he saved the hunter because he didn’t have a reason himself. He knew it wasn’t what Sam had assumed, but he still had no idea why he did it so he might as well let the hunter think what he wanted about the reason. 

“That’s what all that was about?!” Sam exclaimed heatedly. The little bastard couldn’t have just told him what was coming? Given him a real reason; something concrete?

“You’re seriously that dense?” the trickster asked, shocked. “What you think I did it for my own amusement? Please. Like I don’t have anything better to do with my time. I wasted a year of my life on that garbage.”

“So what? You’re just gonna watch me 24/7 now? Or do you really think I’d give up after one failed attempt?” It wasn’t about escaping the consequences for his actions, no matter what the evil little jerk thought. It was about protecting the people who would get caught up in his wake. That’s why he was doing it and it was still a valid reason. 

The trickster gave a heavy sigh. Looks like he was going to have to show the kid that the universe was a little bigger than he thought if he was ever going to get a moment of peace. “Ok I think it’s time for us to take a little trip.”

Sam glared at him, knowing full well that he wouldn’t be able to stop what was coming, but wanting to get at least some kind of information beforehand if possible. “To where?”

“For every decision you make there is a version of you somewhere that made a different one. There are an unlimited number of alternate realities for every choice that everyone has made. We’re gonna go check a few out.”

“Why?” Sam asked suspiciously. 

“To try and get it through your thick head that all this is bigger than you,” Gabriel snapped. “Oh and a heads up, time tends to work a little differently across the dimensional spectrum so we may find ourselves in the past or the future with relation to this timeline.” He waited until he saw that information sink into Sam’s head before he snapped his fingers.


	2. Courage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one is set in the alternate reality of my story Courage.

“Huh. That wasn’t how this was supposed to work,” the trickster mused as they landed on a beautiful beach. 

“What are you talking about?” Sam asked annoyed. 

“Well it was supposed to bring me near you in this reality, but this is my island,” he said confused. Then he heard the voices and what sounded like children’s laughter and started heading in that direction. 

Sam just huffed and followed him and when Gabriel stopped dead in his tracks so did Sam and both mouths dropped open at the sight they were met with. Sam was standing on the beach behind the trickster with his arms wrapped around him while a whole gaggle of children played. Before they were even able to wrap their heads around that development, a voice rang out, “Sylvi Helen Winchester!” The trickster gasped at the name and the fact that it was his counterpart yelling it. “What have we told you about taking the little ones in the water?” 

“Sorry Papa,” she called back pulling the little girl that looked about four years old back away from the water. She herself looked around ten or eleven. 

Sam’s mouth just opened and closed a few times. “What the hell kind of trick is this,” he growled lowly to the trickster, but the gob-smacked look on his face told Sam that it wasn’t his doing either. 

One of the boys, who looked maybe slightly younger than the oldest girl, pulled on Sam’s shorts and he looked down. “What is it Camael?” The trickster sucked in another sharp breath at the name. There could be no doubt now. These were definitely his children. His and Sam’s and that was insane. 

“Daddy, why are there two of you and papa?” he asked pointing to the stunned watchers and that reality’s Sam and Gabriel turned to look at them. Gabriel narrowed his eyes curiously at them for a moment before he turned back to Camael. 

“Take your brothers and sisters and go play with Uncle Dean for a little while buddy,” he said unconcerned and waited until all the children had scampered off before walking over to the newcomers. “Reality hopping?” he asked knowingly, keeping an arm around his Sam’s waist. 

“Apparently,” the other Sam said glaring heatedly at the trickster. 

The Sam from here just laughed. “Aww look Gabe. It looks like other me doesn’t like you very much.”

At those words the trickster’s head snapped to the other version of the hunter who received is own glare. “What did you just call me?” He should have known that if they were close enough to have kids together, then that Sam would know who and what he really was, but he was having trouble keeping up with all the revelations at the moment. 

“Uh oh Sammykins. Looks like you spilled the beans,” Gabe let out his own laugh. “You should have known to expect something like that with reality hopping and all,” he told his counterpart. 

“Okay someone needs to tell me what the hell is going on here,” Sam said getting way beyond annoyed. 

“It’ll be easier to fill you in if we knew when and where you’re from,” Gabriel said. 

“In our reality, Sam just released Lucifer and split up from Dean after and encounter with War I believe. Sound about right?” the trickster asked his version of Sam getting a terse nod in response. 

Gabriel nodded. “So it was only a few months after that when Sam and Dean found out that I was really the archangel Gabriel…” 

“What the hell?!” two voices called out in very different tones. 

Gabriel just smirked. “I don’t keep any secrets from Sam,” was all he replied. 

“Yeah well this isn’t your Sam. This is my Sam!” the trickster said heatedly. 

“I’m not your anything!” Sam yelled back. 

“That’s not what I meant and you know it!” A glaring contest then erupted between the two visitors to this reality as the other two just watched in amusement. 

After a moment, Gabriel cleared his throat and continued. “Regardless. I don’t keep secrets from any version of Sam,” he said being rewarded with a kiss to his temple from his Sam causing the other two to look a bit ill. “After they found out who I really was, I started keeping tabs on them. They were captured by a bunch of gods who were trying decide whether to kill them or use them as bait so I stepped in, as Loki of course, to try and get them out and then things went to hell.” Gabriel’s Sam squeezed him tight and rested his forehead against the side of Gabriel’s head in a gesture of support. “Lucifer was tipped off by one of the gods and showed up in his backup vessel and then Michael followed in his backup vessel. I shielded Sam and we found out later that the only surviving goddess shielded Dean as the rest of the world was leveled. The blast took out all our powers for a long time and Sam and I were thrown in a completely different direction from Dean and his wife. It was a very long year and a half after that before I had enough powers to bring us all here and start to rebuild.”

“Wait a minute. So you’re telling me that the entire world was destroyed and the only survivors were you two, Dean, and his wife who happens to be a monster?! What the hell kind of world is this?!” visitor Sam exclaimed.

Sam very nearly punched his counterpart at that monster comment, but Gabriel’s hand on his chest stopped him. “Easy Samshine. Remember what you were like back then. You can’t blame him for being you.”

“And you’re all just sitting here, happy as clams, having babies and getting on with your lives like nothing ever happened?! And I don’t even want to know how that’s possible!” Sam wasn’t finished yet. 

“Little highstrung, isn’t he?” Gabriel stage whispered to his Sam who laughed before he took control. 

“Like Gabe said. We had a rough time for a good while. I even tried to kill myself afterwards, but he wouldn’t let me.”

“Looks like you do have something in common,” Sam grumbled almost inaudibly causing Gabriel to frown at Sam and look curiously at his own counterpart though the other human in the group didn’t hear it and just continued talking. 

“We found strength in each other though and made it through. There was nothing we could do to fix the rest of the world. All we could do was rebuild. And that’s what we’re doing. And yes we’re happy. We have nine wonderful children, and two nieces and a nephew and we’re not ashamed of being happy. Yes, the world ended, and maybe we weren’t the ones who most deserved a second chance, but we’re the ones who got it and to throw it away on wasted guilt and recriminations would be like spitting in the faces of those who didn’t make it.”

The other Sam just looked at his counterpart in shock. He couldn’t believe that he would ever think that way. That he would ever just be able to brush off the deaths of billions of innocent people. Gabriel looked between them for a few minutes before he turned to his counterpart. “I think you both could use some time to wrap your heads around things,” he said knowingly. If that Gabriel had stopped Sam from killing himself like he implied, then he probably had some budding feelings for the hunter already and he’d just been slammed in the face with everything as much as that Sam had been. 

“Right. Yeah. Good idea,” the trickster said as he snapped his fingers and they were back in Sam’s motel room. 

Sam blinked in shock for a minute. “Are you seriously the archangel Gabriel?!” 

“You already know the answer to that question thanks to my big mouth counterpart,” he grumbled. 

“Then why don’t you just…” 

Gabriel cut him off. “Don’t even go there. I can’t ‘just’ anything. There are two sides to this nightmare and they are both much stronger and have a lot more resources than I do. They have the entire might of heaven and hell behind them. I have nothing, so don’t start,” he snapped. 

“So what. You and I are destined to shack up at the end of the world?” Sam asked sarcastically. 

“Not hardly,” Gabriel said distastefully. “That was just one alternate reality out of an infiniti of them.”

“Then let’s go see another so I can get the bad taste of that one out of my head,” Sam said heatedly.


	3. Enigma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place within the story Enigma.

The trickster snapped his fingers again only to be faced with the sight of himself, curled up in bed around a sleeping Sam. He groaned aloud. Again? This was getting ridiculous. He glared when the other version of himself waved a hand and their voices were silenced, not that Sam had found his yet. Seeing them hugging on a beach was a very different thing than seeing them in bed together. The Gabriel that was in bed lifted the covers and slid out of bed without waking Sam and pulled some shorts on while Sam shielded his eyes disgustedly and the trickster rolled his eyes. The Gabriel from here waved them out of the room and they followed him into the kitchen where they suddenly found they could speak again. 

“What the hell?!” Sam managed to say. 

“Keep your voices down. Sam has the early shift in the morning and he doesn’t need to be woken up.”

“Early shift?” Sam asked curiously. There were no shifts in hunting. 

“Yeah. At the PD. He’s a deputy,” Gabriel said rolling his eyes. 

“What the hell happened here? How did all this happen? What about the apocalypse?” the trickster asked. 

“Yeah that never happened. Never even got close,” Gabriel said smugly. 

“How?!” the trickster asked in a strangled voice. It made no sense to him. 

Gabriel quickly realized that the split must have come from before they came back so he thought back to the major event that changed the course of their lives. “You met them at the college in Ohio for the first time?” Gabriel asked. 

“Yeah,” the trickster confirmed. 

“And you were being all flirty with Sammy here I’m guessing.”

“Eww! No!” Sam said at the same time as the trickster said, “Yeah, I was.”

“You were?” Sam asked incredulously. 

“Are you really that dense that you can’t recognize a little flirting?” the trickster answered the question with another question. 

“Anyway!” Gabriel tried to get their attention and when they both looked back at him he continued. “My Sammy wasn’t quite as dense, recognized the flirting and responded. We had a nice little fling and ended up falling in love until he found out I was what they were hunting. Cue drama and separation and angst yada yada, I popped in just before Sammy died in cold oak, healed him up, had a little standoff with a little brother, then Michael got involved. Managed to beat him in a fair fight and talked him down and he agreed to back off unless father himself gave the order. Sam and I got back together and live happily ever after.”

“See! There is a way to stop it. We can just talk Michael down,” Sam said turning to the trickster from his world. 

“Yeah. Not gonna happen. Michael was talked down before Lucifer was released. Now that Lucifer is free it’ll never work,” the trickster told him. 

“He’s right. If Lucifer is out, nothing will stop it. Those two will keep at each other until the whole world is destroyed.”

Sam sighed in defeat. He’d actually gotten his hopes up for a minute there. “So what you’re saying is that because I flirted back with you at our first meeting the world got saved? Seriously?” 

“Pretty much,” Gabriel said with an amused quirk of his lips. 

“And me working at the PD? How the hell did I become a cop?” 

“Well once you realized that I was only killing rapists and murders and thus saving many more than I was killing, you lost your taste for hunting and wanted to do something different. You settled on cop so that you could still save and help people without having to kill things that may or may not be doing good things.”

“You only…” Sam turned to his version of the trickster. “You only kill people like that?” 

“Obviously,” the trickster rolled his eyes. “Did you ever bother to do any research at all? Even after I gave you the glaring hint about the professor?”

“I…I don’t…” Sam stuttered a moment. They had gotten rather distracted rather quickly with the whole alien abduction thing. He narrowed his eyes at the trickster. He was starting to see him in a whole new light and he didn’t like it at all. It definitely didn’t help that the other version of him was standing there in the kitchen leaning against the counter wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. 

“Out of curiosity, what’s the date here?” the trickster asked. 

“May fifth 2008,” Gabriel told him and Sam gasped. 

“And Dean? Is he…um…” He couldn’t manage to form the words. They were about a year and a half behind him here. Dean would have just gone to hell a few days ago. 

Gabriel wasn’t sure what he was getting at but offered up what he did know. “Last I heard yesterday, he was after a spirit up in Maine. He would have prayed to me if he got into trouble so I’m sure he’s fine. Why?” 

“In our reality, Sam died that day in cold oak and Dean sold his soul to get him back. He went to hell on May second 2008,” the trickster answered for him. 

“You wouldn’t bring Sam back? Not even to stop the apocalypse?” Gabriel asked his other self incredulously. 

“Of course I would have. I even tuned into them so I’d hear any open prayers from either of them, but neither of them prayed and I had no idea until after it was done,” the trickster said disgruntled. 

“They went to a demon before even trying to pray?” Gabriel asked incredulously. 

“Hey now. Not they. That one was all Dean. I was dead at the time,” Sam interjected. He had enough mistakes being thrown in his face here without piling on more. 

“Here Sam was the one to pray as soon as the knife went through his spine,” Gabriel shrugged but left it at that. 

“Yes okay fine. Can we just go now?” Sam said almost in a whine. He’d heard enough. He didn’t need to have any more rubbed in his face. 

The trickster shrugged and snapped his fingers bringing them back to the motel room and Sam was looking appraisingly at him. He didn’t like the way it made him feel at all. “What?” he snapped. 

“So I convinced you to help by sleeping with you if I got that right,” Sam said thoughtfully. It was pretty low, but there wasn’t much that he was above if it would fix this thing. 

“Yeah don’t even try it. Back then it might have worked, but now? Unlike some people I’m not suicidal thanks,” he sneered. 

“Fine. Whatever,” Sam grumbled. Not like he liked that idea anyway. “I think I’m done with this little dimensional tour or whatever.”

“Are you done trying to off yourself?” the trickster asked pointedly. 

“Well let’s see…in the first one the entire world ended and I didn’t even give a crap, and in the second one I had every mistake I never even knew I made shoved in my face and found a ton of other ways I could have stopped it from ever happening, as if I needed any more of those…so what do you think?” 

“Then we’re not done yet,” was the only response before there was another snap of his fingers.


	4. Protection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place during Protection. mentions of rape.

They reappeared in another motel room to find the Sam from that world thrashing on the bed. The Sam that was just visiting went over and shook his shoulder to try and wake him up, but he wouldn’t wake up. “What’s wrong with me…him?” he asked alarmed. 

The trickster walked over and scrutinized him for a moment. “Something’s going on in his dreams. The me from this world is in there. I can take you in there to see what’s going on, but we’ll be invisible and undetectable.” 

Sam nodded. He really wanted to see what this universe’s version of the trickster was torturing him with now. He wanted something to get rid of the softness that he was starting to feel for the guy. What they found when they arrived however had Sam nearly retching as he backed away shaking his head in denial and the trickster wasn’t in much better shape. 

“Leave him alone, Lucifer,” this universe’s Gabriel said as he appeared, having apparently been as invisible as them until that point. 

Lucifer slammed himself into Sam again before keeping up a slow pace as he replied, “And why would I do that baby brother? Unless of course you’re offering to take his place hmm? It would be like old times again wouldn’t it?”

“No…no no no no no,” the watching trickster chanted as he completely froze wide-eyed. 

“I won’t let you hurt him Lucifer,” Gabriel said clearly and only his counterpart could see the fear in him as he stood his ground. 

“And how do you plan to stop me Gabriel? You can’t fight me. Especially not in here. He is mine and his head is my domain. Now I don’t plan to give him up completely, of course, but…I could be persuaded to give him a break…if I had an adequate replacement,” Lucifer drawled cruelly. 

“No no no. Don’t. No. Please.” The trickster continued his chant. 

“Don’t Gabriel,” the Sam from this world called. 

“Fine,” Gabriel said despite the way he was shaking and Lucifer shoved a naked and bloody Sam to the floor and started walking towards Gabriel. 

“Oh god…no…I can’t…S-Sam,” the trickster started reaching blindly looking for his version of the hunter as his eyes were glued to the horrific scene in front of him and Lucifer taunted him to not make it difficult. He felt a hand in his as he watched his other self unbuttoning his shirt and then they were back in their correct universe.

Sam headed for the bathroom to vomit and the trickster collapsed into the chair and let his forehead fall on the table wrapping his arms over the back of his head and closing his eyes. This was the sight that met the hunter when he emerged from the bathroom a moment later. He wondered if what Lucifer had implied about he and Gabriel in that world was true for this one as well, but he wouldn’t dare ask. He got his answer anyway though as he reached out a hand to the trickster’s shoulder only to find him jerking away, chair tumbling to the floor and snarling, “Don’t touch me!” There was no mistaking that reaction. Sam may have had the horrific experience of watching another version of himself be raped, but Gabriel had apparently lived it, and then just had it thrown back in his face. 

Sam bit back the sarcastic remark about this being a good idea and settled for righting the chair and saying a sincere, “I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not,” he snapped. 

“I don’t care who you are or what you’ve done…no one deserves that. Period,” Sam said firmly trying to get his point across. He didn’t care if they spent the rest of eternity hating each other’s guts, he would never let the trickster or archangel or whatever he was, think that he wasn’t sorry for that. 

The trickster took a deep breath and closed his eyes and Sam could recognize a centering technique when he saw one and when the golden orbs snapped open again, there was no sign of turmoil remaining. “Ok. Let’s see if we get a better one next time,” he said raising his hand to snap. 

“Wait!” Sam said quickly and the trickster paused. “I promise I won’t try to kill myself again. We can stop now.” They were both reaching their breaking point and after that…well he didn’t want to see what an archangel’s breaking point looked like. 

“Don’t lie to me. I can still see the despair rolling off of you.”

Sam sighed. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. “Okay. Fine. How about I promise I won’t try again tonight and we can take a break. How’s that?” 

He narrowed his eyes at the hunter and seeing nothing but truth he nodded curtly. “Make it twenty-four hours minimum and you have a deal.” Sam nodded and that decided, the trickster wasted no time in making his getaway. 

Sam threw himself back on his bed throwing an arm over his eyes as he considered the implications of everything he’d seen. He steadfastly avoided the apocalypse or lack thereof subject. He’d promised the archangel turned trickster that he wouldn’t try to kill himself and that subject would just tempt him into breaking that promise so he just considered the rest. The first world they visited, Sam had been happy. That much had been painfully obvious from the look in his eyes to the way he carried himself, and the ease with which he interacted with everyone. He couldn’t remember ever being that happy. And it was with the trickster at that. That was the part that blew his mind. Obviously there was more to the guy than Sam had known, but loving him that much? Enough to have NINE children with him? It was mind-boggling. 

Then the second one they went to they were together again, and apparently happy there too. Sam didn’t get to interact with his counterpart, but everything he could see just screamed happy home, and Gabriel at least had been comfortable and relaxed, nothing like this version who, even while playing pranks and having fun had this tense controlled mien about him. And the last one…Gabriel had taken Sam’s place. He had allowed…Sam’s hands started twitching looking for a razor blade so he cut off that train of thought. No thinking about the last one at all. Go back to the beach and the kids. He drifted off to sleep trying to keep that memory prominent in his mind so that the other wouldn’t come back. He tried to remember as many details as he could about the beach and the kids; their names, the ones he caught anyway, what they looked like, how they acted and he surprisingly managed a decently restful sleep.


	5. Pulling Pigtails

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place during Pulling Pigtails.

After Sam woke up the next morning, feeling rested and refreshed, but not remembering anything about what he may have dreamed about, he noticed the blood staining the room and all the memories came rushing back. Trying to kill himself, the trickster who isn’t really a trickster intervening, the alternate realities, the fact that in every one of them he and the trickster were an item. He still couldn’t quite bring himself to see the wily little being as Gabriel, so he would stay the trickster for now.

It turned out that either he had needed the break as much as Sam did, or he was just trying to be nice, and wouldn’t that have seemed ridiculous if someone had told him that yesterday. Either way, it wasn’t until after Sam had eaten dinner that evening when the trickster showed back up to continue their trek. Apparently, his consideration ended there because Sam barely had the chance to notice his presence before he was whisked away again. This time into another bedroom where he saw a version of himself propped on his elbow leaning over a version of Gabriel with an easy grin. They were obviously naked at least from the waist up and Sam didn’t really want to know what was under the sheets. “Do you have any idea just how much I love you?” that Sam whispered. 

“Oh please,” the trickster rolled his eyes. The Sam in the bed scrambled away from his apparent lover wrapping the sheets around himself as he tried to figure out what was going on, but leaving his Gabriel completely uncovered and completely naked as a result. Gabriel didn’t seem concerned at all about it though as he just raised a curious eyebrow at the newcomers and stretched his hands behind his head. 

Visitor Sam just stared gob-smacked at the sight as the trickster started laughing uproariously and reached over a grabbed a pair of discarded boxers and tossed them at himself. That action brought the Sam in the bed’s attention to what he had done and he brushed bright red, and met his counterpart’s eyes and matching blush as Sam tore his eyes away from the spectacle when the tossed boxers landed over Gabriel’s lap. “Reality hopping?” Gabriel asked curiously, not making a move to put on the shorts, content with them just resting there covering up the important bits as his Sam tried to cover him back up without pulling the sheet away from his own body. 

“Yup,” the trickster said easily, no more phased by the gratuitous nudity than his counterpart, despite his laughter at the Sams’ reactions and beyond the shock of finding him and Sam together. He suddenly felt a tugging on his arm as the Sam that travelled here with him was pulling on his arm and jerking his head towards the door. “I think that means we should leave you to get dressed and then continue this conversation,” he said amused. 

“Sure sure,” he waved them off. He brushed off his Sam’s questions with promised answers later, just giving the basic ‘there are alternate realities and they are from one’ explanation for the time being. 

It wasn’t long before they joined the others in Gabriel’s living room. “So what brings you here?” Gabriel asked. 

“Sam was taking angst to idiotic levels after releasing Lucifer,” the trickster explained. 

“How long has it been since then in your reality?” Gabriel asked, glint in his eye. 

“A little over a month,” Sam said sadly. 

Gabriel looked at his counterpart trying to signal him for a private conversation as he said, “It’s been almost ten months here.”

“So Lucifer is free still? And he doesn’t have Sam yet?” the trickster asked astonished. 

“Like I would let him lay a finger on Sam,” Gabriel said dangerously. 

The Sam that wasn’t from this world rolled his eyes, and his counterpart looked curiously at the two of them, specifically how far they were standing from each other. “You two aren’t together in your world?” he guessed. 

“Not hardly,” the trickster snorted derisively. 

Gabriel gave up on being subtle and just grabbed his counterpart’s arm. “Let’s let these two chat shall we?” he asked pointedly. 

The trickster just shrugged and suddenly they were both gone. “What was that about?” Sam asked the other version of himself that might actually know seeing as he was sleeping with the guy. 

“Not a clue. Gabe’ll tell me later if it’s important,” he shrugged. 

“You actually trust him that much?” Visitor Sam asked suspiciously. 

“We’ve been through a lot. It took more than I wanna say to get us to this point and we’re running out of time. He’s trying to hide it from me but I can see it. He doesn’t know how much longer we can last, and I’m not going to make waves with the one thing that actually puts a smile on my face these days. If I need to know he’ll tell me.”

“You seemed surprised that we weren’t together in my world,” Sam questioned. 

“I shouldn’t have been really. I mean we’ve only been together here for a few months, but since he’s with you…basically the moment we actually started spending time together we became inseparable. He’d apparently loved me for a long time, but it took me a bit to realize that I felt the same way. I just find it hard to imagine a universe where we aren’t together, I guess.”

“Yeah apparently the universe has trouble imagining it too,” Sam muttered. 

“Oh do tell,” Sam said gleefully. 

“Well this is the fourth reality we’ve jumped to and the results have been pretty solid across the board with regards to that issue.” 

 

Meanwhile with the Gabriels:

As soon as they were alone, Gabriel turned to his counterpart and said, “Okay. You need to know that this can be stopped. There is a way to open the cage again and get Lucifer back in.”

The trickster didn’t want to let himself be dragged into this mess. “And why should I care?” 

He was met with a ‘you did not just ask me that question’ look as Gabriel said, “You do care. You love him, whether you’ll admit it or not and I’m offering you a chance to save him, and maybe even be with him if you can pull your head out of your ass for two seconds.”

“Sam has made it perfectly clear that he has no interest in me whatsoever,” the trickster said emotionlessly, neither confirming nor denying his counterpart’s allegations. 

“Oh please. Did you see the way he was looking at me in there when my Sammy so unceremoniously disrobed me, so to speak? That was not a look of ‘no interest whatsoever’. That was a look of someone who has his head as far up his ass as you do, but don’t worry. My Sammy’ll get it dislodged. At least part of the way. The rest is up to you.”

“You expect me to be with him when he could be taken over by Lucifer any day now?” the trickster asked incredulously. 

“Trust me. It’s worth it. One day with him will be worth any fate that awaits us,” Gabriel assured him. 

The trickster snorted. “Right. Sure.”

“Listen. I’m running out of time here. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it, but there might be hope for you. I’ll tell you what I know and you’ll have a lot more time than I do to finish piecing it together okay?” Gabriel said, wanting to get the important stuff out of the way before the Sams started getting impatient for them to come back. 

“Yes, fine, okay, but I’m not making any promises as to what I’ll do with the information.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. They both knew full well what he would do with the information but he would let him have his delusions. “The key to the cage is in four parts, in four different places. There is also an incantation ‘Bvtmon tabges babalon’. The incantation combined with the keys will open the cage anywhere in the world.”

“Ok so what are the keys and where are they?” the trickster asked. 

“No clue. Still trying to figure that part out. Like I said though, you have more time than I do. Just keep those boys saying no in the meantime.” Gabriel didn’t dare tell him about who ‘the prophet Chuck’ really was. If he stuck close to Sam he’d figure it out for himself anyway. 

“Any other burning revelations you have to share with me?” the trickster asked. 

“Well other than suggested methods to remove your head from your ass, no,” Gabriel joked as he transported them back to the Sam’s. 

“You ready?” the trickster asked the Sam from his world. 

“Yeah. I guess.” The next thing he knew they were back in Sam’s motel room. He looked appraisingly at the trickster for a minute. “Any idea why in every world we hit, you and I are together?” He wasn’t going to mention the one that wasn’t clear on that point, and he was sure that no one would complain about pretending it never happened. 

“No idea. Luck of the draw I guess,” he shrugged. Sam wasn’t so sure about that but he let it go for now.


	6. Assistance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place in the world of the story Assistance.

The trickster snapped his fingers again and they ended up in another motel room. Other than it being a different room, obviously, there was one other glaring difference. The archangel on his knees with Sam’s cock in his mouth and his hand working on his own. The trickster was beyond being shocked by such things and was just enjoying watching, while Sam was watching too, just with a bit more of a stunned look on his face. Sam cleared his throat only to be smacked in the stomach lightly by the trickster. “I made us invisible and silent. Wait until they’re done. How would you feel if someone interrupted you like that?” 

“So we’re just gonna watch?” Sam asked, incredulous despite the fact that he hadn’t even blinked, much less looked away. 

“It’s not like they’d care. We’re them,” he replied, shifting his weight to try and make his own erection a little less noticeable, not that Sam would actually notice anyway so enamored as he was with what was happening across the room. The trickster chanced a glance to see that Sam too was filling out his pants rather more than he had been a few moments ago. 

The hunter was torn between watching what Gabriel was doing with his mouth and what he was doing with his hand and holy shit was the archangel well-endowed. He was even bigger than Sam, and while it wasn’t by much, given the size difference of the rest of them, proportionally speaking he was huge. He didn’t even realize his response until his hand moved to the front of his pants and started rubbing without his input and he blushed and shoved his hands in his pockets glancing at the trickster to see if he’d noticed, only to find him leaning lazily against the wall, legs crossed, hands in his own pockets and sporting a very impressive erection himself as he watched the duo. 

Sam couldn’t just do nothing. He was going insane, now that he was aware of it, trying to keep from touching himself, but doing so in front of the trickster wasn’t an option. Hand still in his pocket, he rubbed the side of his cock to try and relieve some of the pressure, but that only made it worse, until he finally gave up and headed towards the bathroom refusing to consider the fact that the damn trickster would know exactly what he was going to do. The couple didn’t even notice the bathroom door closing, so involved as they were. 

The second Sam was locked away, he ripped his pants open and pulled out his aching cock, stroking a few times as his breathing sped up and he barely managed to stay silent otherwise. He knew that the other Gabriel and Sam couldn’t hear him, but the trickster could. The thought of the trickster had his hand increasing its pace and he couldn’t help but open the door a crack to see if he could see the couple from there. He couldn’t, but he did have full view of the trickster, who had apparently taken the opportunity with Sam out of the room to do the same thing as he had his head leaning back against the wall, his pants undone and his cock in his hand. 

That sight alone was enough to send Sam over the edge with a soft grunt as he sprayed the wall with his cum. He quickly cleaned it off and cleaned himself up before slipping out the door. He wanted to see what the trickster would do if Sam came back in before he finished. His face heated up though, when all he did was catch Sam’s eyes and not look away, with a little smirk on his face until he came over his hand. He snapped his fingers to clean himself up and Sam tore his eyes away to look at the floor and nothing but the floor. Right up until he heard the other Sam gasp out, “Oh god…Gabe…so close,” then his eyes snapped up to the couple again as the archangel swallowed him all the way down and hummed around his length and as Sam was coming in Gabriel’s mouth, the archangel came over his hand just as the other version of him had. 

The trickster waited long enough for them to clean up and redress before he snapped again and they were visible to the room. “Greetings from another reality,” he quipped, getting a laugh from his other self and a confused look from the other Sam. 

“What brings you to our little humdrum world?” Gabriel asked in the same tone. 

“Trying to show Sammykins here that releasing Lucifer isn’t the end of the…well…you know what I mean.”

Gabriel laughed at the almost slip of the tongue. “Well you’ll be glad to know that we avoided the end of the world here. In fact, it’s been three years since Lucifer died.”

“Wait…he died? Michael won? And the world is still intact?” 

“Michael never got the chance to fight him. I got to him first,” Gabriel said with a smug grin. “And I had an advantage.”

“Not that you wanted to use it,” the other Sam said rolling his eyes. 

“Well excuse me for wanting to keep you safe,” he replied. 

“No you were trying to get yourself killed,” Sam pointed out. 

“To save you, you numbskull,” Gabriel argued, and the two visitors looked at each other confused. Weren’t they usually on the other end of this?

“Um…guys?” Sam interjected. 

“Right. Sorry. Full story?” Gabriel asked. 

“Well I don’t think they want the full story, Mr I wanna be a girl.”

“Oh yes. I definitely want the full story,” Sam said perking up at that. 

“Well after the whole mystery spot thing, he decided to worm his way into my good graces by showing up as different women and offering a little help on the cases. Of course he wasn’t nearly as slick as he thought he was and I found out that he wasn’t what he was pretending to be and that all these beautiful women were the same thing. Needless to say I was pissed and wanted to kill him, but he talked me out of it by pointing me at Ruby instead.”

“I thought for a while there that I managed to avoid the whole apocalypse when I managed to convince him that the demon bitch was using him and get him on the right track, but then Cassie managed to convince him that I was killing angels because I had angel blades, and moron here wouldn’t even hear me out and got so stuck up the angel’s asses…and not in a good way…that he didn’t breathe without permission, and kicked off the whole thing anyway.”

“I figured him out when we refused to say yes and he decided to try and convince us to. He was, understandably, pissed that I wouldn’t listen to him and released Lucifer and told me to…what was it again? ‘suck it up, accept your responsibilities, and play the role that destiny has chosen for you’. I recognized enough of the mannerisms to put two and two together and pegged him as the chick right about the time we found out that he was Gabriel.”

“And then he proceeded to use my feelings to manipulate me into trying to help them stop it,” Gabriel started to take over only to be interrupted again. 

“In my defense, I didn’t realize that you had feelings for me at the time. I thought you were just horny,” Sam said. 

“Whatever. The end result is the same. I got roped into helping them. Found out about the keys to the cage, but by the time I did, they were cornered by a group of angry gods and before I could get them out of there Lucifer showed up. I tried to pass the information on to give them time to escape, but the idiots wouldn’t leave. Well Sam wouldn’t leave me and then Dean wouldn’t leave Sam so yeah.”

“So the advantage you mentioned...was Sam?” the trickster guessed. 

“Bingo. Luci didn’t want to risk damaging his true vessel by bursting into his true form, so we fought in our vessels.”

“Still…he’s good,” the trickster said. 

“No kidding. He almost killed me,” this world’s Sam chimed in. 

“Only because you were dumb enough to jump in front of the blade,” Gabriel said. 

“Well it would have definitely killed you and I hadn’t even told you that I loved you yet.”

“Yeah, way to wait until the last minute there,” Gabriel rolled his eyes and the visiting Sam cleared his throat again. 

“So Sam took an archangel blade to the gut, Luci was distracted by that since he’d been being so careful not to hurt Sam and I used the distraction to put my blade through his chest, got the big yes from Sam and stayed in his body for a month while the damage healed and voila! Here we are.”

“Great!” visiting Sam said. “We have a plan then.”

“The hell we do!” the trickster said. 

“Hey it worked for them!” Sam argued. 

“Yeah at the cost of dangling Lucifer’s true vessel in front of his nose. They got lucky.” Sam narrowed his eyes at the trickster. He’d expected something along the lines of how much danger the archangel would be in not Sam, even though it wasn’t worded that way, Sam could read between the lines. He seemed to realize what he said too because he hastily added, “Even if I were willing to actually put my own ass on the line, which I’m not!”

Sam was no fool. He hadn’t missed the fact that in most every scenario they’d been in so far, Gabriel had feelings for Sam long before Sam ever realized it and he couldn’t help but wonder if the same was true here. Before he could think too much on it though, the trickster had changed the subject again. “You said you figured out the keys but didn’t have a chance to use them?”

“Yeah the four rings of the four horsemen…”

“And the incantation. Thanks. I knew the key was in four parts and I have the incantation. I just needed the horsemen’s rings part,” the trickster told him. 

“Glad I could be of service,” Gabriel said with a theatrical bow and both Sams rolled their eyes in unison, and then Sam and the trickster were back in their own world again. 

“Gabriel…” Sam started to say before he was cut off by another fingersnap. Apparently he didn’t want to talk.


	7. Gilded Cage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place after the events of Gilded Cage.

The trickster didn’t give Sam a chance to make a single comment about that reality. All he could think about was making something happen quickly to make Sam forget about that little slip of the tongue. If he could bombard him with other stuff, then maybe he could actually get out of this intact. He should have quit after the first one, but he had been so sure that there couldn’t be that many universes where they were together and he just kept digging his hole even deeper. With any luck things would be different here but as he turned around and saw himself and Sam standing on the cliffs of his island, the hunter’s arms wrapped around him as they watched the sunrise he gave a defeated sigh. This was it. He was done. This would be the last place they would visit no matter what they found here. 

His sigh drew the attention of the couple on the cliffs and they turned to look at them. The trickster desperately needed to get some distance from Sam, and to keep his other self from giving up too much also so he quickly whisked him away for a private talk, leaving the two Sams alone together. He didn’t even consider how much the other Sam could spill. The dimension hopping Sam was getting pretty familiar with the explanation by now, and since the trickster had left without one, he essentially introduced himself with the whole ‘I’m from an alternate reality’ thing. 

This Sam apparently knew a lot more than any of the others on the whole alternate reality issue, because he suddenly started asking intelligent questions on the subject that had the visiting Sam looking at him like an alien. “Yeah I don’t know much more than I already said,” he chuckled with a sheepish shrug. 

“Ah. Gotcha. I kinda got interested in dimensional theory not long after I first got here, so it’s kind of a hobby of mine, at least, as Gabe says, as much as my limited human mind can comprehend,” he said with a laugh. 

“Then maybe you can help me with a few question I have that my ‘Gabe’ won’t answer.” When he got a nod and a gesture to continue he did. “So far this is the sixth alternate reality we’ve visited and in all of them he and I are together. Why is that?” 

He was expecting something along the lines of how the realities are grouped together or at least something technical. He wasn’t expecting the answer he did get. “That doesn’t really have anything to do with dimensional theory. That’s more soul theory. See every so often there are souls, or in this case soul and grace, that call out for each other. No matter the time or the circumstance they will always find their way together.”

“So no matter what I do I will always end up with him whether I want to or not?” Sam asked scrunching up his nose. 

“You do still have a choice. You don’t have to be with him if you don’t want to be, but you’ll probably always be drawn to him. Some part of you will always want him whether your conscious mind does or not, and he’s the same with you.” He could see the skepticism on his visitors face so he decided to throw him a bone. He was sure his Gabriel wouldn’t mind and he didn’t give a crap if the other one did. “Look, Gabriel has been through a boatload of shit in his life. He learned early on that feelings were more trouble than they were worth, and he will fight them tooth and nail. For all his talk though, he does feel things deeply. He just keeps it buried down and hidden behind masks. Trust me, it’s more than worth the trouble to break through.”

Sam nodded. He would think about that, but he had other things he was curious about too that he wanted to get out of the way before he was whisked away. “What happened with the apocalypse here?” he asked. 

“Never happened. After Dean went to hell and I went off the rails, I suddenly woke up here. He told me in no uncertain terms that I could have the run of the island, and do whatever I pleased, but I could never leave. It took a little while before I was calm enough for him to finally tell me why, about how as long as I was hidden here they couldn’t use me to open the cage. I was a right ass for a good while, but it’s hard to stay mad in paradise.”

“This place is pretty nice,” Sam admitted. 

“No kidding. And then once Gabriel realized that I wasn’t going to be able to be really happy without Dean, he went and talked him into trapping himself here too. Plucked him right out from under heaven’s nose. It was great. Of course for him it was also a way of trying to distract me from trying to break through his masks, not that it worked.”

“You know the first reality we went to was very similar to this, except we had a gaggle of kids running around,” Sam joked. He hadn’t even realized that the Gabriel’s were back until he heard a choking sound behind him from the Gabriel that had brought him here and a chuckle from the native one. 

“Don’t go getting his hopes up now,” Gabriel said. “Not sure what was different in that world, but in this one, Nephilim are hunted and I couldn’t guarantee that I’d be able to keep them from slipping the wards and alerting anyone of their location. It’s too dangerous.”

“Nephilim?” Sam asked looking at the trickster curiously. 

“Offspring of angels and humans,” he explained. 

“That’s okay, Gabe. Long as I’ve got you, that’ll be enough,” the Sam of this world said. 

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Sap,” he said indulgently with a smile on his face while the trickster made gagging motions and visiting Sam laughed. 

Before he knew it, they were back in Sam’s motel room and Gabriel asked, “So we good now? No more razor blades?” he asked. 

Sam grinned. “We’re good.”

“Good. Then mmph.” Sam had grabbed Gabriel and kissed him, pressing him hard against the wall. Given all the insights he’d gotten into the archangel’s psyche in the last two days, he figured the physical part would be easy and he had a plan for the emotional part. He had gotten a little tip from the Sam the first time they had split up as far as how he had gotten Gabriel to admit to his feelings. 

Sam waited until he could feel Gabriel’s erection pressing against his own and the archangel was clutching at his back to get more friction between them, and then Sam moved his lips to Gabriel’s neck. “What do you want, Gabriel?” he whispered seductively in his ear. 

“I…fuck…I want you,” Gabriel panted as his hands moved to Sam’s belt. 

“How do you want me?” Sam asked as he licked a stripe up Gabriel’s neck, ending with a nibble to his earlobe. 

“Want to fuck you,” Gabriel gasped as he finally managed to get Sam’s pants open, but the hunter was still pressed too tightly against him for him to do much more. “Sam…” he whined. 

“Then you can fuck me,” Sam said with a sharp nip to Gabriel’s neck. “And after that?” 

“A-after?” Gabriel asked confused. Why the hell was Sam still talking anyway?

So maybe Sam didn’t think this through all the way. It wasn’t going the way he had planned it, so he decided to just be blunt. “You love me, don’t you?” he asked punctuating it with a hard suck as he moved his hands to undo Gabriel’s pants to distract him from what he was actually answering so that he would get the real answer rather than the one that Gabriel thought about. 

When Sam’s hands popped Gabriel’s pants open and brushed against his aching erection, the archangel couldn’t help the words that came spilling from his mouth. “Fuck…yes…Sam…I love you Sam…” he suddenly sucked in a sharp breath as he realized what he said and tried to pull away, reaching down to redo his pants at the same time. 

Sam’s hands around his wrists stopped him though, not that he couldn’t break the hunter’s grip, but in the second it took him to consider that, Sam was speaking again. “I love you Gabriel. Stay. Please.” 

“You don’t…” Gabriel started to say before his lips were once again beneath the hunter’s in a slow sweet kiss that left no doubt of the hunter’s words. When Gabriel tried to pull his hands away this time Sam let them go and they immediately pulled the hunter closer for a good ten seconds before he was pushing Sam back towards the bed, stripping their shirts off along the way. When he felt the back of Sam’s knees hit the bed, he held tighter, keeping the hunter from falling into it just yet as he reached down and pushed Sam’s pants down, followed by his own, pausing long enough for them to kick off their shoes and step out of the pants completely before Gabriel finally pushed him back and they fell into the bed. 

“Fuck Sam…need you…so bad,” Gabriel gasped as his lips latched onto the hunter’s neck. 

“Then take me,” Sam panted ending it with a moan as the words were punctuated by a slick finger sliding into his ass. “Oh god…yes…Gabe…”

Gabriel rubbed their cocks together frantically as the motions of his hips pressed his fingers deeper into Sam as he added a second and finally a third, stretching the hunter out as well as he could before removing his hand, lining up his cock and sliding in slowly, giving Sam a chance to adjust along the way. By the time he was fully seated he was panting at the effort of holding back. 

When Sam bucked his hips up, he knew that he was going to embarrass himself with how short this was going to be but he didn’t particularly care at the moment. He was soon pounding furiously into the hunter, so hard and fast that Sam had his hands braced against the headboard for leverage, but he was still begging for more. “Fuck…Gabe…harder…faster…shit…please…”

Gabriel’s hand moved down to stroke Sam in time with his thrusts and when Sam cried out his name as he spilled over, Gabriel slammed himself in hard and deep and let the clenching of Sam’s ass milk him for everything he had. Once he was spent, he collapsed on the bed next to the hunter, and Sam’s arm immediately wrapped around him and pulled him close. “I love you, Gabriel,” he whispered, knowing that Gabriel doubted his feelings more than he doubted Gabriel’s, he wanted to reassure him first, now that the lust wasn’t in the way. 

Gabriel settled against Sam’s side with a slight smile. “I love you too Sam,” he whispered back. Reality hopping was the best idea he’d ever come up with. Not only did it get him Sam, but it got him the knowledge of how to save Sam from his fate. That was tomorrow’s issue though.


End file.
